


Terms of Use

by burymeonpluto



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: A Small Piece of Something Greater, Gratuitous Smut, M/M, Sort-of Canon-Compliant, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Very Post-Canon, but vague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 08:45:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11894172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burymeonpluto/pseuds/burymeonpluto
Summary: "He wants to tell him.He never will."In which Riku searches for any sort of respite from his feelings, and finds himself staring down a dark path. And Vanitas is more than happy to shove him down it.





	Terms of Use

**Author's Note:**

> A little bit of preface first: This is actually a deleted scene from a longfic I'm working on, so there's a tiny bit of background noise that can be ignored. The more I try to type up the context, the more I realize how unimportant it is. So, I'll be glad to answer any questions you have in that regard. This scene is... well... extremely post-canon.
> 
> Oh! Vanitas calls Riku "Hero" for some completely twisted reason. I'm not sure I get it either. It's not even ironic. But it's a thing that happened in aforementioned longfic, so it carries over. 
> 
> Honestly, I feel like I'm only posting this because this ship gives me life and it's so non-existent. It's such a damn SHAME. This is also the first time I've ever posted on this website and I have no idea what I'm doing! (A disclaimer.)
> 
> Aaaaand this is what happens when you dare the asexual author to write smut....

 

 

“Thank you, Riku. You saved me again,” Sora sighs. His eyes are so tired. “I’m always relying on you.”

Riku just smiles. “Some things never change.”

Sora’s response is laughing softly through his nose. “Is that okay?”

Riku says nothing. There are a million things he wants to say, but nothing comes out.

Sora doesn’t see the sudden clenching of his fist. He never does. He lays motionless, staring at the ceiling like he’ll find some answers carved between the patterns there. Eyes close, and breath retreats.

Riku shuts the door behind him, knowing that Sora is already asleep. Truly asleep, for the first time in weeks.

A sigh deflates his chest.

He marches away and doesn’t look back. He was so close. He can’t believe he almost said it. As if it would help. But it wouldn’t help Sora. He’d be doing it for himself.

But in the heat of the moment it seemed like it might’ve offered a little comfort, or—

No, that’s wrong. It’s completely _wrong_. It only would’ve made things worse. Make them complicated. Cause more pain… He doesn’t want that. He just wants to _be there_.

But that isn’t really true either. He wants a lot of things.

He wants to tell him. He wants to relieve the pressure more than anything. It’s been building for years and it’s only gotten worse and it won’t get better and at times like this he has to wonder if he can take it anymore. A stubborn frustration swirls inside of him and threatens to tear him apart.

He wants to tell him.

Oh gods, he wants to tell him.

But he can’t.

He wants to kick and scream and fight and _beg_.

He doesn’t deserve it.

Don’t look over here.

He can’t make his friend feel so guilty. That’s all he’ll get out of it. Causing his friend pain. He doesn’t want that.

His chest is burning.

He wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. To shout at him with tears streaming down his face as he spills out his insides. To gut himself with no restraint and _hope_ he’ll stitch him back together. He wants to hear that this isn’t wrong.

He wants to tell him.

He never will.

He has to swallow it back down. He can’t reveal his insides, even when he’s bursting at the seams. He’ll keep going. He’ll cope.

Somehow.

His aimless march through the mansion takes him down several hallways, and before he knows it he’s following the sound of voices. The low hum of friendly, pointless conversation and halfhearted snickering. They’re voices he’s used to. Roxas, Ventus, Vanitas, and Xion. Why is Xion here? Actually, he doesn’t really care. He turns the corner leading to the lit and lively room. He wants a distraction. Ventus, Roxas, and Xion’s voices come from inside, while Vanitas leans against the arch of the door as if he’s unsure if he’s coming or going, and Riku’s meandering steps falter.

His eyes catch that familiar silhouette in those darker tones and suddenly he wants something else entirely.

It’s wrong and it’s awful but he can’t stop it. He shouldn’t. But it’s within reach. Electricity explodes through his center. Somewhere deep inside he’s sure that part of him wants this too, perhaps in a way that might not be so wrong. But it’s constantly overshadowed. Is it even real?

He doesn’t care anymore. So he walks past the doorway, hooking Vanitas by the crook of his arm and plucking him from the arch and the conversation without even breaking stride. “Come with me.”

“Woah,” he stumbles a bit as he hurries to match Riku’s pace, but he doesn’t fight it. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing good.”

Of course he would grin at that answer. “I like the sound of that.”

Riku doesn’t say anything after that. He drags Vanitas through the winding corridors of the mansion. Where is he even going? How far will the others read into this?

He really, _really_ doesn’t care.

Riku’s own room is the closest, so he heads towards it. Or perhaps he was already going that way out of pure instinct. He roughly shoves the door open.

Vanitas is all but thrown into the room and comes to a staggering halt. Irritation graces his face as he turns towards the closing door. “Alright, Hero, what the hell is it?” The words have barely left his mouth before Riku’s hands are on his face and drag him into a desperate kiss. There’s his answer. His brows furrow, but he reciprocates all the same.

The moment crawls by like a slow-dripping faucet.

Riku pulls back, and somehow, Vanitas already seems to understand. “Did you tell him?” he asks.

“No.” He shapes the word on a trembling breath.

“I see.”

“I can’t tell him.”

“I know.”

“I know you know,” he says, and he sounds so defeated. Vanitas quickly catches his lips. “You know I can’t.”

And again.

“I can’t do that to him.”

Again.

“He has,”

Vanitas has stopped waiting for the ends of sentences.

“—enough to worry about.”

Again.

“But I almost did.”

Riku keeps talking, and Vanitas keeps silencing him.

“Just now, I almost,”

He smothers the words before they can leave Riku’s mouth.

“And I can’t stand it. I—”

“Hero.” Vanitas interrupts him with his voice this time. “Shut the hell up.” And Riku shuts up. Vanitas brings their lips together once more. “Just stop talking.”

Riku makes an affirmative-sounding hum. Vanitas doesn’t give him enough time to verbally agree. Or agree at all, really. But Riku should’ve expected this—no, he _did_ expect this. Vanitas is pushy, and takes what he wants. If he’s shoved around, then he’ll reciprocate tenfold. Riku sealed his fate as soon as he grabbed his arm. And that’s precisely _why_ he did it, isn’t it? Vanitas isn’t passive.

His tongue barges into Riku’s mouth without permission, as if to prove that point.

That’s precisely why. Riku doesn’t fight it. He doesn’t protest. He lets it happen because after all, this is what he’d asked for.

Vanitas reaches in. He still tastes vaguely tart, like ripe green apples. When did this taste become so familiar? Riku remembers the time he accidentally split Vanitas’s lip and the apples became rusted with blood. He’d split it with his teeth. At that time, too, he was merely distracting himself from something. From something that was missing. From Sora.

Wrongness pinches painfully in his stomach. He takes a tentative step back, fingers digging into Vanitas’s shoulders. He has to say it. “Right now,” he breathes. It’s heavy. The heat is everywhere. It’s crushing his chest. “You know I’m just using you, right?”

“I’m not an idiot, Hero,” he scoffs. Hands grab Riku by the belt and pull him closer, golden eyes gleaming in the dark. “But once those doors close, as long as you keep your eyes on me, I can’t say I give a damn.”

Riku can’t bring himself to argue with that.

Vanitas is so close. The warmth is radiating off of him. It sends the room out of focus. But his tongue is cool between his lips, and Riku’s hands are moving on their own. He pulls in a noisy breath. This is what he’d asked for.

Fingers run through a forest of black, spiky hair, and he pulls, _presses_ , until they’re closer. Until their bodies are flush against each other and there’s nothing but heat. Until his fingertips trace the familiar outline of those spikes and the shape hitches in his chest. He instantly remembers how wrong this is. How he shouldn’t.

And Riku hesitates.

And Vanitas is scowling. “Goddammit, Hero,” he growls, “if you’re so sexually and emotionally frustrated then fucking _do_ something about it already!”

So he does.

That’s all it takes for Vanitas to burn down every inhibition in his body. It’s typical. He always gets what he wants when he has Riku alone like this. And Riku can’t deny that it’s what he wanted. What he’d asked for. _Why_ he grabbed Vanitas’s arm in the first place. He knows it’s all his fault, and the tether within him snaps. He shrugs the invisible weight from his shoulders and buries his face in the crook of Vanitas’s neck.

Vanitas appears pleased with this, and forces him back a step. Then another. And again, until Riku feels the wall against his back. They are never idle. They’re constantly moving, rocking, and swaying for nothing but sensation. Hands slip up Vanitas’s back, pushing his shirt further and further until it’s over his head and across the room.

The exposed skin beneath his touch suddenly feels foreign. He falters for an entirely different reason.

Vanitas leans back and grabs him by the chin. His thumb is pressing down on slightly parted lips. “Don’t regret it later. Don’t you fucking dare.”

Riku carefully swallows. He can’t break that intense stare. “Okay.” Can he really keep that promise?

“Because I’m using you,” Vanitas’s mouth crashes onto his, and they both turn to static. “I’m using you too.” Hands roam through a maze of fabric and flesh. The futility of everything is falling down around them.

But they don’t care.

Fingers brush away doubt. Lips curl against shame. Teeth shear pride. The heat in the air scorches all the wrongness until it’s nothing but soft ash. It smooths over skin and leaves them blanched and gasping.

The air is nothing but pressure. It’s sweltering.

Riku takes a huge gulp of that suffocating air. The coil in his chest is twisting and tightening and _screaming_.

It’s wrong but it’s fire. It’s so warm.

Vanitas’s hands are flames. They work their way across Riku’s chest, eating away at his skin. Soon, his shirt is another pile of ashes on the floor.

And, to Vanitas’s surprise, Riku doesn’t miss a step. He doesn’t hold back. He doesn’t hesitate. Not anymore. His mind has been successfully locked inside this room, where there’s only the two of them and lots of space and heat.

Vanitas grins against his throat. He lays his teeth into the meat of Riku’s shoulder. Riku pulls him in. Nails and teeth and fingers dance feverishly over his body and he feels every touch. Every quiver. Every clutch. His insides are on fire and melting in the smoldering furnace of his stomach.

He hears Vanitas’s belt come undone. His own hands tremble over the latch. When did he—?

Vanitas breathes hard and rocks his hips forward. He won’t be outdone. Riku feels the pressure rising. Vanitas smirks against skin, calls him “Hero,” and plants a wet kiss on his throat. Hands tighten. Vanitas calls him by name, and he practically curls in over him.

Vanitas knows—he’s never called Riku by name. Only nicknames and insults. And now, of all times—?

He continues down Riku’s throat and over collarbones, saying his name between every kiss. A burning like acid bursts in Riku’s chest. It steals his breath away. Vanitas travels down his midline and his body is screaming. His fists coil against the wall as all the blood is drained from his skull. His brain has shut down. He cranes his head back and a noise comes from his mouth that he didn’t know he was capable of making. Fire rises in his face. Sensation bombards him on all sides. The room is spinning. The world is tilting. Fingers claw at the wall at his back. He can’t hold on.

Vanitas is hovering over his belt buckle, and pulls it loose in a single motion. “Don’t go falling away on me,” he murmurs. That smirk sends Riku spinning. Vanitas resurfaces and crashes into his lips. “I’m not through with you yet.” Cool hands slip beneath fabric and skin, pressing into hips and the more tender parts of his flesh. Fingertips tease around the throbbing, craving pieces. Riku arches off of the wall. It’s become a _need_.

Riku furiously meets that golden stare, well aware that he’s slowly, if not entirely, becoming unhinged. Vanitas’s hands reach around and pull him by the backside, and he steps into it. His arms find Vanitas’s waist and he lifts him off his feet. Vanitas laughs breathlessly at him, his apple tongue slowly coaxing its way between his lips. Behind his teeth. Riku’s voice rumbles in his mouth. It’s as though Vanitas is trying to reach in and take a bite out of his heart.

How long have his legs been moving? He doesn’t know. His knees hit the mattress. He lets go of Vanitas’s waist and the black-haired boy tugs him by the jaw and they both tumble down into a heap without pause. Vanitas’s leg presses inside his thigh and it’s skin against skin and Riku is sure he’s lost his mind. Lips trace the curve of Vanitas’s neck. The ridge of his jawline. The valley of his mouth. Like tart green apples. Vanitas is holding onto his hips. Riku’s own pulse is throbbing between those hands, and Vanitas knows it. His Cheshire smile is taut between the press of their lips.

Hipbones grind together and set them on fire. Riku gasps. Where is his breath? He reaches in deeper, to rip the air from Vanitas’s lungs with his teeth if he has to. But it still isn’t enough. What else is left? His heartbeat is screaming in his ears. He grasps for unsatisfying breath. Vanitas stares up at him, expecting something. But he can’t breathe. He can’t—

It’s a dead end, and Riku is ashamed to think that he doesn’t know what to do. This is the edge of all he knows. Certainly not all he’s wondered about, or even fantasized, but all that he’s sure of.

Vanitas doesn’t miss that moment of trepidation. He sees right through it. He shoves Riku hard in the shoulder, and follows the tangle of their legs as they twist until he’s staring down at him with a predatory gleam in his eyes.

And Riku suddenly knows that he knows, and he’s sure that a million questions have just flared in his mind but he doesn’t have enough blood left in his skull to ask them. Fingertips skitter across his hips, his inner thigh, and he instantly forgets why he had questions he couldn’t ask. Is there anything to question? This isn’t wrong, is it?

No, it can’t be. If it feels like this, it _can’t_ be wrong.

The sane part of his brain reasons with him from an incredible distance: _Not completely_.

Vanitas is grinning at the apprehension in his face. He shifts, and legs are moving and hands are tightening around arms and wrists and ankles and with one quick motion the entire world is shattered. Neon-bright stars burst behind Riku’s eyes and his lungs fill with air.

It hurts. Oh gods, it hurts. It’s enough to bring tears to his eyes. But his blood flow doesn’t change. His pulse is still raging between his legs and Vanitas finds its rhythm. Again and _again_ until it doesn’t hurt anymore and then longer still. There’s something deep inside of him that Vanitas is so close to reaching. He’s almost there.

Almost there.

There’s a burning inside of him that threatens to spill out from his very pores. It’s unbearable. Pressure mounts. Fingers knot. Toes curl and breath flows faster. He tilts over the edge of an endless abyss.

And falls right in.

Light explodes before his eyes like a hundred-thousand supernovae. Everything inside of him comes rushing out and he bursts alongside those stars.

He has no idea how long he spends floating in that endless space. It feels like an eternity before the ceiling comes back into focus.

It isn’t long after he returns to his body that he feels Vanitas shudder against him. He collapses atop him like a fallen star. His breath is hot on Riku’s neck. Riku’s fingers get tangled in the spikes of his hair. That pitch black hair. That’s right. He’s not a fallen star. He’s a collapsar. He greedily takes everything in and crushes it. Riku has been caught in the pull of that gravity and can no longer escape. He’s honestly not sure if he wants to.

He shuts his eyes, knowing what that means. Kairi was right. He _is_ obsessive.

But he’s known that all along, hasn’t he?

Vanitas carefully rises back up and steals the surface of his lips. It’s oddly soft. But is it gentle, or simply tired? Then his tongue works its way in again. It’s definitely tiredness. After all, they just—

And all of Riku’s questions suddenly spring back to life, blood returning to his brain at last.

He grabs Vanitas by the arms and pulls him down, rolling until he’s mere inches above that satisfied face. His chest is still heaving, and Vanitas is similarly out of breath. “How?” Riku asks, words not forming. “Where did you even learn—?”

“I told you before,” Vanitas grins up at him. “Old Man Merlin has some very interesting books on his shelf, and bottles in his cabinet.”

There’s not enough energy left in him to be curious. It wouldn’t do any good. He lays their foreheads together and sighs. “I’m not even gonna ask.”

“That’s probably for the best,” he admits, and pulls Riku in for a long, suffocating kiss. A moment drags into a minute.

Riku breaks off and takes in a greedy gulp of air. It sends the room spinning again. He falls ungracefully onto his back, and Vanitas remains unmoving beside him.

He’s so tired. He’s fucking _exhausted_.

But that’s normal.

It’s the only normal thing about all of this.

“Vanitas,” he pants. The other only hums in response. “Vanitas,” he says again. But still, there’s barely a mumble. Riku lays there gasping at the ceiling. “This isn’t healthy.”

“Neither is sea salt ice cream,” Vanitas scoffs. His laughter chimes exasperated through the dark. “And yet, we keep eating it.”

“The fact that I really like it doesn’t help either,” he sighs, satisfied with the allusion. His body is beginning to ache all over.

Vanitas manages a grin. “Yeah. Same here.”

Riku can’t stop his smirk, and turns over despite his protesting muscles. His arms snake around Vanitas’s breathless form to pull him close and tuck his head beneath his chin. Vanitas tenses for the first time. Tenderness… some kind of caring… Riku knows he doesn’t understand it. He’s not even sure if _he_ understands. But he holds him there, nose buried in that spiky black hair, breathing him in. He won’t lie and say it meant nothing to him, despite Vanitas’s own feelings, or lack thereof. Possibly.

Vanitas lets himself go slack, muttering about something being “hopeless.” Whether he’s talking about the situation or Riku himself, Riku doesn’t know. He ignores the pain coursing through every plane and alcove of his body. It waxes like the tides. It will soon retreat. But the squeezing in his chest doesn’t go away. He doesn’t want it to. He wants to be affected. It’s proof of himself—of his heart—his normalcy. He never wants to let it go, even if Vanitas will never understand.

Even if Sora will never understand.

 

 


End file.
